Same Old, Same Old
by Iris-tPSoLC
Summary: Alternate Universe / T for Violence / Hermione's undercover mission to find out who's behind the systematical murders on police officers proves itself even more dangerous when she falls in love with the son of the owner of the company she's investigating.
1. Same Old, Same Old

Chapter 1; **Same Old, Same Old  
><strong>"**Soul Meets Body**" by Death Cab For Cutie

_In my head / There's a greyhound station / Where I send my thoughts / To far off destinations / So they may have a chance of finding a place / Where they're far more suited than here._

* * *

><p>It almost seemed ironic. Like life did this on purpose. She had just complained about her job as a crime journalist, which had been quite boring the last year. Just ten minutes ago, she had expressed how she didn't have anything interesting to do, that there were only petty crimes and no interesting cases like the ones she had solved when she had first been hired by the police department. And now a colleague of hers was dead. Murdered. Brutally murdered. Lavender Brown had been shot six times with a high caliber gun, from behind.<p>

Her body had been found by a local, who had called the police. The call was instantly put through to the head of the Murder Investigation Team, Zacharias Smith, who had brought his team together immediately. He had ordered Harry to come to the emergency meeting - Harry didn't know the subject of the meeting at the time - and call Hermione in, who was, by coincidence, already there.

Hermione huffed a little at the pure irony. Just after complaining about the boring times at work... she was called in for a emergency meeting, which she was normally never called in for. And certainly not on a day she was supposed to be free. Hermione was, technically, not a member of the police department, nor a member of the MIT. She was just a crime journalist with maybe more guts than was good for her, who had been hired by the police department to write press releases and small articles for the local news paper - but she proved herself helpful and a brilliant addition to the squad when she, after only being hired for three weeks, had successfully solved a unsolved case from years ago. Another two weeks later, she noticed a very small but important reoccurring detail in five separate unsolved drug cases and, without permission, she went undercover to collect evidence against them - which she did. After that huge success, Hermione had been asked to work along with the MIT when needed, because of her ability to spot small details and see things others overlooked. But she was never called in. Never. She never went to a murder scene, never went to an emergency meeting, but now she was.

* * *

><p>Her mind shifted back to the meeting room when Zacharias Smith stood up. She slowly took in the faces of the other people in the room. Most of them had paled a lot. Terry Boot looked like he had to throw up. Dean Thomas rested his face in his hands, his elbows on the table. Harry looked normal - but Hermione saw a look in his eyes that expressed grief, but also anger. Neville Longbottom, a good friend of Hermione's, stared at nothing in particular with an open mouth that expressed his shock - his eyes were watery. It had started raining again - the depressing hard sound of the water on the windows matched the moods of everyone in the room. Zacharias Smith spoke, for the first time after announcing Lavender Brown's death and the cause of her death.<p>

"Lavender Brown was a hard-working and appreciated colleague," he said. "Brought light in every room she entered. It is a shame to lose a police officer like her, but it is a bigger shame to lose a person like her. She will be missed." The MIT nodded and mumbled some words for the woman.

"Should I come to the murder scene, sir?" Hermione asked Smith quietly, not wanting to sound inhumanly fast back to business.

"Yes, Miss Granger, that is why I had Potter call you," Smith said, somehow sounding slightly annoyed by her question. "The sooner this case is closed, the better. For our colleague's sake." Smith put his hat back on his head, thereby making the difference between his personal self and his professional self. "Okay, Longbottom - go to the murder scene immediately with your team. Potter, follow them, take Granger with you. Boot and Thomas - question the man who called us to report the murder and search other witnesses. I'll stay here to control the situation here at the office."

* * *

><p>And so it happened that a few minutes later, Hermione sat next to Harry in a police car, on their way to the murder scene.<p>

"I can't believe it," she said to Harry. "I feel so guilty. I just complained - and now - Lavender - and - " She felt sick to her stomach, sick with guilt, like it was her fault that Lavender was murdered. She almost felt dizzy thinking about it.

"I know," Harry said with a soothing voice, smiling her a fitting smile. Normally, Harry's or Ron's voice could calm Hermione down in seconds, the three of them being friends since middle school.

"Ron..." Hermione said. "Ron doesn't know yet." Ron wasn't part of the MIT. Somehow, Smith seemed to neither like nor trust Ron Weasley, and where everybody saw he was a good strategist and could think rationally, Smith didn't see it, or refused to see it.

"Smith is probably informing everyone at the moment. Just... try to keep calm, and get your strength out of knowing that the murderer will get caught and locked up," Harry said with the same sort of smile on his face. It still couldn't comfort her. She felt like she couldn't be calmed down at all - she felt like throwing stuff through the car, and at the same time she felt like breaking down, putting on pajama's and eating chocolate ice cream in bed until she fell asleep. She wanted to say to Harry that he should know, since Ron knew her well. Better than her and Harry, anyway, but she didn't say it, and took a middle way with her feeling by lighting up a cigarette. She knew she couldn't smoke in police cars, but at the moment, she couldn't care less as she shut her eyes and lay her head against the cool window.

Four days ago, she had been buying snow globes as a souvenir for her friends. Three days ago, she had said goodbye to Chicago, a city she had come to love in the two weeks she had spent there alone, and got on the plane back home. Two days ago, she had spent her day getting comfortable with her jetlag, sleeping in as long as she wanted, watching some movies and cooking herself an unhealthy but satisfying dinner. Yesterday, she repeated that. And this morning, Monday, a day she was normally off, she went to work. People were happy to see her again, she was happy to see them again. She gave her snow globes, they ate some delicious birthday cake, she invited a small group of friends over for a late birthday dinner at her house this evening. She laughed, felt happy with her life and her friends, happy in her single life where she could do anything she wanted, happy with her job, where she worked with friends, although she had her complaints about it, and she knew that those were the moments everybody should value and appreciate the most and live fully. Because it could be over in a heartbeat. Because around the same time she had been congratulated by someone, gotten kisses on her cheeks, Lavender Brown had been brutally murdered.

Hermione angrily squeezed her cigarette filter between her fingers, and felt hot tears dripping out of her eyes, knowing that her life as she knew it had changed for good - and could not ever be changed back.

* * *

><p><em>In my head  There's a greyhound station / Where I send my thoughts / To far off destinations / So they may have a chance of finding a place / Where they're far more suited than here._

* * *

><p><strong>Tumblr<strong>; SameOldSameOld-DramioneFanfic  
><strong>Youtube<strong>; SameOldSameOldHPFF


	2. Clueless

Chapter 2; **Clueless**  
>"<strong>The Resistance<strong>" by Anberlin

_Speak for yourself / You paper tigers / You'll crash where you stand / You've got a riot on your hands / […] / Silent alarms are ringing / Sounds of revolt draw near / A new united front / That you will come to fear._

* * *

><p>Hermione saw Lavender Brown getting out of her police car. She knew she had to say something to her - warn her about something, but Hermione couldn't remember what she should warn her of. She only knew that danger was ahead of her, that something terrible was about to happen. Lavender fiddled with her car keys while she walked into the dark alley. Hermione wanted to yell her name, say to her that she should turn around, but she was frozen in place. Hermione couldn't move and couldn't speak, she could only watch how she walked further into the alley now.<p>

Just when Lavender was out of Hermione's sight, a stranger in a long black cloak appeared, his hand in his pocket, following the girl. The stranger had no face, just a dark shadow where its head was supposed to be. And suddenly, Hermione remember what would happen.  
>Hermione tried to scream with all her might, with everything she had, but she couldn't hear anything. As soon as the stranger was out of her sight, all the sounds Hermione made in her head were overruled by the horrific sound of a firing gun and a last scream of horror from Lavender.<p>

At that moment Hermione realised Lavender couldn't have screamed because she was shot in the head from behind - killing her before she'd know what had happened to her. Hermione saw the stranger running away. She couldn't see Lavender laying on the ground, but she could see a pool of blood streaming down the alley.

Hermione woke violently. Her face felt wet with sweat. She could hear sounds actively, and she could move again too. Not Lavender but Hermione had screamed in her sleep - she had screamed so loudly her throat burned.

She wiped her wet face with the sleeve of her pyjamas, but her skin wouldn't stop sweating, making her pyjamas stick to her skin, and she felt imprisoned by the cotton fabric. She tore the pyjama blouse open, an action that made most of the buttons on it spring off. She could barely get her trousers off with her shaky hands. She opened her bedroom window, still panting from the exhausting dream. With her pyjamas off she was almost naked, only wearing her knickers, and there was a chance people in the opposite buildings may see her. That didn't occur to her, she was too busy trying to calm down and cool down. Vaguely her mind registered that it was October, the middle of the night and below freezing point outside, but she didn't want to close her window just yet. The cold wind on her naked skin made her feel slightly better.

It was just two days ago, that Monday morning, that Lavender had been killed. It was now barely Wednesday, the time being nine minutes past three. Hermione vaguely remembered waking up yesterday night too, around the same time, from exactly the same dream. She had stayed up the rest of the night, afraid to go back to sleep - and she was planning to do the same now.

Still shaking from the murder she had witnessed in her dreams, she took a cigarette out of the pack that was laying in her windowsill and lit up a cigarette, taking huge drags that calmed her down a little, but not enough to stop her body from shaking. The smoke from her cigarette circled up and disappeared, spiralling into the night. The sky was foggy, and she could clearly see the lights radiating from their lampposts, which was a beautiful thing to see. She watched her smoke lingering in the orange lamppost light for a while, trying to concentrate on it, because if Hermione didn't concentrate on _something _at the moment, her mind would take her back to the things she witnessed in her dreams.

Everything had changed in the two days since Lavender Brown was found murdered in a back alley. Hermione Granger hasn't slept this badly in ages. She had trouble falling asleep, and when she finally did, it felt like she woke up immediately after due to the nightmare. Lavender's crime scene was horrific, to say the least. Hermione knew it was horrible before she had been there. She never had been at a crime scene ever before, but she has seen a lot of photographs - but this was beyond her most horrible thoughts. There were six bullet holes in the body of the brown haired, sweet faced girl. Three in the back of her head... the amount of blood almost made Hermione throw up, but she didn't throw up until they turned Lavender's body around, so she was on her back. There were exit wounds... even the most skilled mortician could not fix this. The other three bullets hit her lower back. The coroner at place said the shots in her back were completely unnecessary. The CSI team could tell that Lavender was shot in her head before she was shot in her lower back, and the shots in her head were definitely lethal.  
>All those facts had such a traumatic impact on Hermione that she barely ate, drank or slept. She knew she was living on water, vodka and cigarettes, but she had no appetite at all. Nauseousness, all the time, without breaks, since that Monday.<p>

Just as horrifying as the murder scene was the fact that Lavender shouldn't have been at that place at that time at all. Her police car was parked neatly on the curb; she was shot after only walking a mere fifty feet. There was no record at the police station for a radio transmission to her car, or to any other car. Nobody knew or could find a reason why Lavender Brown was there at that time. This mysteriousness made Hermione's mind work so hard it had trouble concentrating on anything else, while being able to concentrate on other things but the murder would make a difference to Hermione. Work and personal life were now almost the same thing, and she had hoped that would never happen.

There was also no trace at all of the murderer. It seemed like a perfect crime. The bullets were identified as belonging to a Glock 21, but the specific gun was untraceable. It was most likely manufactured illegally. Added to that, none of Lavender's co-workers knew about any recent or unsolved fights or arguments she was involved in. The MIT had questioned her friends, her family, but they all said the same as her co-workers. Further investigation was pointless. There was nothing at all that could be used to find Lavender's killer.

There were so many mysteries to solve. Hermione was part of the MIT because she solved mysteries like these, but this seemed unsolvable. She felt a lot of pressure on her, like everybody expected _her_ to see something everybody overlooked, something that would solve and close the case immediately. Hermione had spent her whole Tuesday reading every single written word in the case file. There was nothing to be found. She felt useless. '_Useless'_. The word hit her hard, like somebody had thrown a brick at her head.

The half-finished cigarette fell out of her hands, out of the window onto the curb. She slammed the window shut, but she could barely hear the noise. She let herself fall on her bed, hoping she would fall into a deep sleep. Normally, you can feel when you are about to start crying: your nose sort of tickles, the backs of your eyes sting, and your throat closes up. That didn't happen to Hermione. She skipped all those steps and broke down crying so instantly it felt like her eyes were about to be flooded out of their sockets and her chest panted up and down so fast she was almost hyperventilating. Hermione couldn't say if she didn't make a sound or couldn't hear herself.

* * *

><p>First, the MIT and the CSI team thought it was a murder on Lavender as a person, but they discarded that very soon. There was no clue to be found for a personal vendetta between her and someone else and the Glock that was most likely illegal reeked of a murder in a organised crime circle. So they started investigating the murder of police officer, Constable Lavender Brown, instead of the sweet, innocent civilian girl Lavender. Somehow, this calmed Hermione down a bit when she was told about that in the Wednesday morning MIT meeting. It was not the first time a cop was murdered out of vengeance. Still, for most people, it didn't change anything. The loss was just as painful, a person was gone and it didn't matter for what Hermione felt calmer did not mean she felt better, because she didn't feel better at all.<br>She came yawning out of the meeting. It was almost two o'clock now, which meant she had been sitting in the same chair in the same room for about six hours. And for what? There was nothing to do regarding the murder, due to the lack of evidence and the absence of Zacharias Smith, who had gotten so annoyed with everything around eleven o'clock that he went out to interview the man who had found Lavender _again_. Hermione's head was not reacting well to all the sounds around her. It had been quiet around the office when she arrived this morning, but it was the opposite now.

It was chaos. Everybody tried to be calm while trying to calm everybody else down, which resulted in a weird kind of panic. Everybody speculated the weirdest things about her murder, thought back to everything Lavender had ever said or mentioned to him or her or discussing persons who hated the police in general. She stood still, no more than a couple of feet from the meeting room. She saw the members of the MIT walk past her, but she paid more attention to everyone else. She didn't know why she looked so intently at the emotions everybody was sporting on their faces, but she reckoned she wanted to recognize on those looks - just for confirmation she wasn't the only one who had been feeling so exceptionally bad.

* * *

><p>It was an hour later when Hermione came outside the building. She searched for her cigarettes and her car keys in her bag. She wanted to go home an hour ago, but she had seen Parvati in the hallway. Hermione had said something nice to her about Lavender, since Parvati and Lavender had been best friends since Hermione could remember. But Parvati started rambling to Hermione, replaying conversations between her and Lavender, to see if Hermione could find anything suspicious. Parvati talked about things Lavender had said about her hair pins, her bunny, the pasta she had eaten the week before... and Hermione had listened to her. Parvati was too kind and too heartbroken to be whipped off like that. Hermione empathized with the girl, who apparently hadn't got the message it could easily be a murder of a police officer, instead of specifically Lavender. So Hermione listened to her, although she kept losing track of what she was saying.<p>

Besides, Hermione knew how important it was to have somebody to listen, because Hermione herself couldn't empty her heart. She felt uneasy talking about it with Harry or Ron - she couldn't exactly say why. Her best guess was that it was because she didn't want to show them how weak and useless she felt at the moment. She knew Harry would send her home the minute she told him she was feeling like this, but she didn't want to be sent home because she would even feel weaker and more useless than she felt now. So she decided to keep her mouth shut about it, let it rest and hoped that her emotional state would fade soon. She knew it would, it had to.

Hermione flicked her cigarette bud away, and stepped into her car. She had kill the engine as soon as she had started it: Harry came running out of the building, motioning her to stay parked. She immediately knew it was completely wrong, just by the look of Harry's face. The last time she had seen him looking like this, with an expression on his face that made him appear forty instead of twenty-four, was two days ago, when Lavender had been murdered.

Mere minutes later, Hermione sat in a chair in the meeting room. Zacharias Smith had been found dead. Murdered. The MIT voted Harry their new chief instantly. Normally, Harry would have been very happy to be the head of the MIT - but under this circumstances, Harry wanted to be everything but. He did not resign, though, and Hermione knew he would never do that. Harry was the bravest person she had ever met. He saw this work as his solemn duty - and no matter how afraid he was, Harry accepted a long time ago that there were things that mattered more than his own life, causes that were worth dying for as long as it helped the world to be a better place. He was also very loyal, and he would never leave his team alone in times like these. Hermione and Ron used to laugh a little sometimes at his words. They found them so melodramatic, almost like he saw himself as the next superhero. Now, they both envied his bravery. Both of them were scared out of their wits. They never said none of this to him, of course - Harry had learned to be brave and loyal the hard way, and laughing at him for what he said and did felt disrespectful towards their friend.

Hermione thought she couldn't feel worse after waking up violently from her nightmare and crying very loudly into her pillow for the rest of the night without falling back asleep. Apparently, she could. Harry had just informed the team on the murder of Zacharias Smith, which was _exactly _like the murder of Lavender. He was found at a place he wasn't supposed to be at all. His car was neatly parked. Same type of bullets, traceable to a Glock 21, untraceable to a specific one. Three shots in his head, three shots in the lower back. Dark back alley. Shot from fifty feet distance. No suspects. No fights. There was nothing.

* * *

><p>Ever since the murder of Zacharias Smith, every police officer braced him or herself. Everybody was afraid now; who would be next? Would <em>they<em> be next? Nobody was safe any more. But nobody resigned. Nobody resigned _yet_, Hermione knew; sooner or later, people were going to resign from their jobs at the police station.

Panic was the first and only word that Hermione could think of when she entered the building on Thursday morning. The whole office was in a state of panic. They were already panicking, after the murder on Lavender, but now it was for everyone to see. She felt a sort of annoyance - these people were _trained _to deal with crisis situations. Hermione knew that the first step in any crisis plan was to keep calm - and she didn't even had a crisis training.

But she knew where it came from, the panic. Of course she knew. Nobody had slept properly since Monday. Nobody was at ease with all the extra guns. Everybody was suspecting everybody. Everybody was thinking over every single conversation they had with Lavender and Zacharias. Everybody was jumpy when suddenly talked to. Nobody felt remotely safe. Everybody's world has changed in just four days - although that realisation didn't come until the third murder.

Hermione was fiddling with the handcuffs she had got while she walked into her office, locking her door behind her. Everybody had got a gun, a taser, and a pair of handcuffs now, and so did Hermione. Everyone also got a police radio installed in their cars for emergency situations. She was not really convinced, to say the least, that these safety measures would prevent a third murder, but at least it would made everybody who worked for the police feel somewhat safer on the streets, even if they were not police officers. Lavender was barely a constable - she was in training. she had worked at the police administration for some years, and normally stayed indoors. She wanted to do something active, something on the streets, something different. This was the last 'clue' the MIT had regarding her murder, but when Zacharias Smith was found dead too, they knew that hadn't to do anything with it. Zacharias was the MIT team leader before he was dead - and he apparently just came from the witness of Lavender's murder, questioning him again.

Suddenly, Hermione felt a huge urge to throw her gun and taser out of the window. She was thinking over every single fact regarding the two murders for the what must be the thousandth time, angry with herself because she couldn't find anything. She wanted to do something, find something, so desperately it almost killed her. When she heard someone knocking on the door, she let everything fall on the floor. She was about to throw her gun towards the window, in the hope of breaking it. Maybe it was better she was interrupted. After all, she did want to stay on the team and if Harry heard she was throwing stuff that was manufactured to inflict harm around the room he would send her home immediately.

"Hermione?" she heard Ron say.

"Yeah," Hermione said absent-mindedly, while picking up her stuff. She didn't want to talk to Ronald right now, she wanted to be left alone. She was glad he stopped her, without knowing it, from throwing stuff through the window that is not supposed to be thrown through the window.

"Hermione, it's Hannah," Ron said, his voice shaking. Hermione froze, and let the gun she just picked up from the floor fall again.

"No." This couldn't be true. "No, not her. Please not her," Hermione begged.

But the third victim was Hannah Abbott. Her death fell hard, really, really hard. She had barely heard the things Ron told her from the door post, while she was sitting in her chair. He had briefed her in short, because she needed to go to the meeting room immediately. Ron told her that Hannah was shot six times in her head and that that almost completely destroyed her face, but what Hermione hit harder than the murder itself and the animosity with with they were done, was the fact that Hannah Abbot was one of the kindest people ever - everybody who had ever met her said that. Hannah had married Neville Longbottom, someone with a heart as kind as hers, and Hermione sighed. The poor boy - he had lost so much already.

* * *

><p>Friday morning. Nobody liked Fridays anyway, but this was an extraordinarily unlikable Friday. Four days days since Lavender's murder. Two days since Zacharias' murder. Just a little more than a day since Hannah's. Everyone Hermione saw that morning appeared to be feeling exactly the same: devastated. People stared at her as she walked by, she noticed. The looks on their faces was a mixture of desperation, devastation, and hope. It made it frustrating for Hermione to walk through the building. She already felt incredibly guilty. She knew that complaining about being bored at her work and the first murder taking place on the same day had nothing to do with each other, but somehow she still felt guilty about it, like her brain hadn't really accepted that fact. She was anything but bored now, she was extremely busy with double, triple and even quadruple checking every single word in every single report, finding nothing at all. She had spent the whole day doing that. After the briefing about the murder of Hannah, she had gone home and rigorously started reading all those reports - she hadn't even <em>tried <em>to sleep and just worked the entire night. Maybe not sleeping was the reason for her frustration at the eyes directed at her. She knew she was looked at because she was seen as a final hope and it laid so much pressure on her. She had solved murders before. Old murder cases, even, files from over twenty years ago. She had found something useful in them that could reopen a investigation and eventually lead to an arrest and a long jail sentence - and everybody expected the same would happen now, but it was quite hopeless. _A final hope._ It sounded far too dramatic for Hermione. It was barely a full week since the first murder and most murders weren't solved in a week's time, but then again, the whole case was so hopeless that everybody was clinging to everything they had that could possibly help them. But maybe those thoughts weren't that crazy... She could vaguely remember that she had, indeed, found something useful yesterday. Had she? She did remember searching for an empty file map... copying things on her printer...

The next moment, she found herself sitting in her usual chair in the meeting room, a steaming hot cup of coffee in her hand. She couldn't remember getting herself a coffee in the lunch room. Why would she? She wasn't planning to drink it. Someone was talking, she vaguely noticed. She put her cup on the table before her. That small movement took her a lot of effort; both her body and her mind were extremely tired.

Hermione had a lot of those small black-outs the past days, finding herself suddenly somewhere without remembering she was going there. Yesterday, she got her groceries twice, got coffee thrice, and she just could not remember a lot of stuff. She didn't know if she had forgotten she had eaten something last night or if she hadn't eaten at all. It was probably the latter - since Monday, Hermione had barely eaten. And now, she couldn't remember what she had done between getting coffee in the lunch room, and getting here.  
>When thinking about food, she felt hungry and nauseous at the same time. It cost her a lot of might to concentrate on what Dean Thomas was saying at the moment, the smell of the coffee distracting her a bit.<p>

"Saying that," he concluded the first part of his speech. Hermione sighed. What had he been talking about? "We may have something," he announced, trying not to sound relieved. Hermione's instinct said to sit right up, but her body refused to move unnecessarily. "Boot and I thought it may..."

"Yeah, where is Terry anyway?" Ron asked. "He should be here, right?" Hermione suppressed the instinct to slap a hand to her face - not that she would have the strenght to do that if she couldn't have resisted that urge. Ron was not stupid, not at all, but he had a lot to learn if he wanted to be respected as a MIT member. For example, you don't interrupt someone when he or she is talking. And secondly, you don't address a team member with their first names because you are colleagues inside the walls, and not friends. Still, Hermione thought Ron's promotion was the only positive thing about this whole week. Ron was a perfect strategist, being able to predict the behaviour of others excellently, proving this on various occasions where he easily outsmarted people on the streets. Zacharias Smith never noticed Ron's obvious talent - or he had ignored it for some reason - but promoting Ron was the first thing Harry did when he got voted MIT team leader.

"Yes, Weasley," Harry said to his friend, "But Friday has always been his day off..."

"My _wife _just died," Neville said with a mingling of new found inner strength, fear and worry on his face. "I'm off on Fridays too. I am here."

"Listen," Harry said, ignoring what Neville just said. He probably knew what they were all thinking of. "He just has a day off, okay? Speaking of Terry Boot - I want you to know I made him Head of Constables since I can no longer hold that function since I am Head of the MIT... Thomas, I am sorry for interrupting you , please continue."

"Yes, sir," Dean Thomas said. "We _think _that the murderer hacked into our personnel database, and that is how he knew, for example, that Hannah was working here." Hannah was the first murdered without wearing a police uniform. Hermione had wondered a lot about this fact the night before - how could they have known Hannah was a constable police officer when she wasn't even wearing her uniform? This was proof for this theory of Thomas and Boot... Before Hannah's death, the team had thought about someone who just shot a cop as soon as he saw a police car, luring him or her out of their car somehow. This theory was very quickly wiped from the table - mainly because of the fact that the ones who were murdered were all murdered from behind, and not from the front, and that there was absolutely zero evidence. Hermione wanted to ask a question, but couldn't find enough strength to raise a hand at the moment - but she kept trying.

"That is a possibility, yes," Harry said, writing it down. "Is it possible to track down a hacker? See if anyone entered the database?"

"We don't have the technology yet, sir," Dean said. "But Boot called an expert yesterday and he is coming to the station tomorrow to install software and do research on it."

"Is budget informed?" Harry asked.

"Yes, sir," Dean said, "Finnegan said this murder series has unlimited budget."

Hermione remembered she had written down a lot of options herself yesterday, possibilities on how they could've known Hannah was an police officer. She would show her list of possibilities to the MIT another day, though; Dean Thomas had just informed the team of his theory, a theory that was most likely to be found true. Hermione was sure it was somewhere high on her own list too, but she decided that she would only share her list if the theory of Thomas was wrong, and that was most likely not the case. It was a logical explanation for Hannah's murder. Slowly, her hand raised up in the air.

"Good," Harry said. "Granger?" Hermione suddenly hesitated to ask the question, but she did it anyway.

"Are only the police officers in that database, Thomas?"

"Yes," Dean Thomas said. "You are not in it, if that is what you meant, since you are hired as a specialist here, and not as a member of the police."

"I'm sorry," Hermione said. "I just..." What did she wanted to say? She was sorry she was, if the theory was true, safe? It felt good to know her life was most likely safe, and horrible too, because the lives of her friends were not. "I'm sorry." Hermione looked down.

It was quiet in the meeting room for a second. Dean Thomas touched her upper arm and glanced a small reassuring smile at her - a smile that said that it was okay - that he would've asked the same. Hermione nodded at him, thankfully.

"Granger?" Harry said. "You had something too right?" Hermione realised she did. She had found something. She had written something important down yesterday... she couldn't remember what, exactly... and she had put it on the online meeting agenda, right... What had she found again? She had been so tired - she still was - she could not recall what she had found. It had something to do with... bullets - or something. Hastily, Hermione retrieved her copy of the case file from her bag, and opened it. Everything came back as soon as she read her notes.

"I think we aren't dealing with one murderer, but with several," she said, hoping nobody noticed she had temporarily forgotten what she had found. "I may be wrong, and over-analysing things," she instinctively excused, "But Brown and Smith seem to be shot with a lot less accuracy than Abbot was."

Hermione took the crime scene photos attached to her notes, used all her might and willpower to stand up, and clicked the photographs on the whiteboard with magnets. She pointed at Lavender's entrance wounds, barely able to really look at it. She still had a massive headache, she was lucky it wasn't noticeable in her voice yet.

"Longbottom's CSI team already noticed the angle of these wounds - and that they differ. And they said it was because you can hold a gun in different ways... So I discarded my theory in the first place, but when I saw this..." She pointed at Hannah's wounds - "You'll see that these shots are just two and a half inches apart. Shot by an expert. And these..." She pointed at Lavenders entrance wounds - "Are almost eight inches apart, while Brown was shot from fifty feet and Abbot from almost seventy. You can't shoot this inaccurately first, and that expertly later. The change in angle may be because of height differences."

Hermione had prepared some sort of conclusion, she recalled, but she felt like she was about to faint. Why did talking and standing use so much energy? The hand she used to point at the wounds felt incredibly heavy. She needed sleep. She needed rest and she did not need any more horrific crime scene photographs. She felt like she needed to talk about everything that had happened with her colleagues, but she also didn't: everybody talked about it all day long, so when she was finally alone with a friend like Harry or Ron for a while, they talked about different things entirely.

"Granger..." She heard Harry say vaguely. How long had she stood there in front of the whiteboard, without talking? It could have been just seconds, but it felt like hours. "That sounds good. But with three murders... I don't know. It could be that the murderer just... is a professional, yes, but just found the fun in it after his first victim, and just used them as... _practise_, instead of just as victims. There are a lot of possible explanations for these facts."

_Three murders. Murderer. Professional. Fun. Victim. Practise. Victims. _Those were the only words Hermione heard.

"Technically, it's possible," Neville said without much sound. He had not even looked at the whiteboard, just listened to her all the time. Hermione could understand, of course. She wouldn't fancy looking at the gunshot wounds in the head of her dead spouse either. "I'll let my CSI team compare shooting techniques. But it sounds _very _plausible. This... this also means we're even further away from closing this case if there are multiple people murdering our... dear colleagues."

"Doesn't have to be," Ron said, patting Neville on his upper arm with the same kindness Dean Thomas had shown towards Hermione. "I mean... if you catch one, you catch them all, basically. And with more people, it is more likely that one of them makes a mistake soon, and leave enough evidence for us to catch one. We'll catch that bastard, okay?"

"I'm done," Hermione said. She felt her knees wobble, and she stumbled back to her chair, letting herself fall into it. She was tired. She was so tired. She was also hungry, she realised - but the thought of food almost made her throw up right on the spot. She just couldn't stand any longer. She had broken down, it had been too much now, everything added up. Nobody could easily handle the murders plus the lack of sleep that came with it, but looking at the crime scene photographs every minute of every working day, not talking about it, and being alone at home without someone or something to distract her mind for a while was way too much for one person.

The phone in the conference room rang. _No more_, Hermione thought. _Please let it be something else... _

The last thing Hermione remembers is falling of her seat after she hears Harry say the words, "Terry Boot has been found, dead." She feels some body warmth on her, some arms that lay her down safely on her back. She hears somebody shouting that an ambulance should be called. Hermione's eyes close, and her world blackens.

* * *

><p><em>Speak<em>_ for yourself / You paper tigers / You'll crash where you stand / You've got a riot on your hands / […] / Silent alarms are ringing / Sounds of revolt draw near / A new united front / That you will come to fear._

* * *

><p><strong>Tumblr<strong>; SameOldSameOld-DramioneFanfic  
><strong>Youtube<strong>; SameOldSameOldHPFF


	3. Business Opportunities

Chapter 3; **Business Opportunities**  
>"<strong>Notion<strong>" by Kings of Leon

_I've got a notion that says it doesn't feel right / Got the answer in your story today / You gave me a sign that didn't feel right / So don't knock it / Don't knock it / You've been here before._

* * *

><p>A carton of juice and a cookie. Normally, Hermione would have huffed at the gesture - although she knew it was normal for paramedics to give you those after you woke up from fainting - but she was glad she had something to drink and eat at the moment. She leaned against the wall of the police building, and watched how the ambulance drove away. The paramedic had said something about sitting down, but she felt more comfortable standing. Sitting at this moment felt weak in her own mind.<p>

"Miss Granger, what was the last thing you ate?" the paramedic had asked her inside the ambulance, after letting her answer some basic questions like what her name was, if she could remember passing out, if she knew the date and the current time.

"Well, uhm," she had said, blushing. At that moment, it seemed incredibly dumb to not have eaten a single thing since Monday morning. "Monday morning," she had mumbled, while accepting the cookie and the juice carton from him.

"Do you often stop eating and drinking for a few days?" the paramedic had asked then. Hermione got a little cross at the moment; what was this guy aiming at? He must have known about the murders, and he must have known she was working at the police station, and now he was trying to link her fainting to what? Anorexic behaviour? Hermione didn't answer him very nicely.

"First of all," she started, "If three of _your_ colleagues would have been murdered in less than a week, you wouldn't feel like eating much, would you? I am _not_ anorexic, if that is what you're aiming at. Secondly, I have never said I didn't _drink_, because I _did_ drink water - continuously." She said this all very coolly, and it made the paramedic feel a little uncomfortable. What she said had not been a complete lie; Hermione had drank water, but not more than two litres in total since Monday, plus a whole bottle of vodka. Hermione half-heartily expected that the paramedic would say something unfriendly back, but he didn't. She guessed it was part of his job to stay nice, and it made her feel a little sorry for her outburst. He just did his job.

"I am obliged to ask that, Miss," he had said to her. "I can understand the past week was hard for you, but if you don't want to die as well, you had better start eating again." Hermione had politely thanked him, apologized for her outburst, and started eating the sugary chocolate-chip cookie as amiably as possible.

She had finished her cookie now, and she put the the straw in the juice carton. Orange juice. Delicious, cold, orange juice. Hermione thought about what had happened to her while she drained her juice as fast as she could without getting a brain freeze.

She had felt horrible the past few days. She had lived on merely two litres of water, a litre of vodka, and at least ten packs of cigarettes. She had not slept more than ten hours in the entire week, and she had constantly looked at horrific crime scene photographs of her three dead colleagues. It was no more than logic that she'd faint one day or another.

Somehow, she felt better now. She felt somehow rested, like she had gotten some sleep - weirdly enough, although the clock inside the ambulance had told her it was eleven o'clock, and the meeting had started around ten. Her mind was also at ease, like what had happened was just a fictional crime movie, and she had been watching it on television. She felt like what had happened wasn't happening at the moment. She felt like herself again, finally. She could rationalize and distance herself from what had happened.

* * *

><p>She had finished her orange juice already - she craved for more, and wanted to go to buy some lunch at a sandwich shop around the corner, but she hadn't even started walking before she remembered what had happened between her short presentation about the possibility of multiple murderers, and her fainting. That memory made her freeze on the spot.<p>

A phone call, announcing another murder. Terry Boot had been absent the whole day, but when Neville pointed that fact out, Harry had discarded it - Boot was always free on Fridays. Harry knew perfectly well that Terry Boot wouldn't miss a meeting like this, even when he was free - but Hermione assumed he just didn't want to think about the possibility he may be murdered before it was actually confirmed he was. She didn't know more about Terry's murder yet - but at that moment, someone who had more information called her name.

"Hermione!" She saw Harry coming out of a police car that was parked on the parking lot. Dean Thomas was with him. He must have caught her when she had fallen from her seat, she had been sitting next to him, Hermione realised.

"Hey," the two men both said while Harry pulled her into a hug, pulling her out of the frozen state she was in after realising that Terry had been murdered too.

"How are you?" Dean asked her.

"Much better, thank you," Hermione smiled to him, giving him a small hug too. After all the events from last week - and most likely, the events from upcoming weeks - she thought everybody could use some more nice gestures, a little more didn't really talk much with the handsome dark man, but she respected him a lot. He was kind, and a strong member of the MIT, mentally and psychically. Hermione was sometimes surprised at his do's and don't in combination with his life story - you'd expect that someone who had served in the army for some years and became an cocaine addict before he checked himself into rehab and joined the police would be a bitter, cold person with a negative view on basically anything.

"You scared us all, you did," Harry said, while Hermione was looking for her cigarettes in her bag. "Can I have a fag too, please?"

"'Course," Hermione said, handing him one and passing him her lighter while she apologized. Harry didn't smoke much, only when he felt like it - which was usually only when he had slept badly or felt horrible, which explained why he wanted one now. "I'm sorry," she said. "I really am. It was my own fault, I haven't slept well, hadn't eaten since Monday, and..."

"Me neither," Dean said. "Haven't slept, I mean. I live at me mum's, and she forced me my food down me throat, otherwise it could have happened to me too, y'know."

The three of them talked for a few minutes about how they were doing since Monday. She didn't say to Harry and Dean that not talking about it had most likely helped with feeling even worse the past days, causing her to not eat and eventually faint. She was glad Harry and Dean talked about it, now - Hermione didn't say much herself, but hearing them talk about it helped her.

"Hermione," Harry said after flicking away his cigarette bud. His frown came back on his face. He talked in a different tone now. He locked his eyes on hers and Hermione braced herself for the words she knew would come. "Can you remember what happened right before you fainted?" Hermione sighed.

"Terry is dead, isn't he?" she said, pressing her lips together.

"Yes," Harry said. He sounded a little relieved, probably glad he didn't have to say the words again. "Both the CSI and the MIT are already there, but us two wanted to wait until you got out of the ambulance, but we really need to head over to his crime scene now..."

"I want to come with you," Hermione said, dedicated to her goal - to catch and lock up the bastards who had done all this. "I think I can see and notice more things if I'm at the actual crime scene."

"But - are you sure?" Harry said with a worried look. He had always been very protective of his friends, something Hermione appreciated a lot in him, especially since he didn't take it too far. Harry knew Hermione well, and he knew he couldn't change her mind once it was made up. Still, he always tried to overthink her decisions, not wanting her to hurt herself. "You're not really accustomed to crime scenes and -"

"I agree with Smith," Hermione interrupted him. "The sooner the murderer or murderers are caught, the better - for our colleagues' sake," she quoted her former boss. "And if I don't go to see the crime scenes, it'll feel like I'm not doing enough for everyone we have lost so far."

The two men were quiet for a moment. Dean nodded curtly, and Harry seemed some sort of proud at her, like he admired her bravery. But Hermione didn't feel brave, not at all, actually, but she had to do this. She would feel even worse if she didn't go to every crime scene from now on. She hadn't seen Hannah's and Zach's, and thinking about that made her feel stupid enough. It was almost like she danced on their graves.

"Okay," Harry said. "But please know that you can leave from the crime scene whenever you want."

* * *

><p>Hermione had gone to the crime scene in her own pace, going to the supermarket first. She was still hungry, which was a good sign. She had gotten her appetite back after waking up from fainting. This meant she could, after a full week, see her goal clearly again; finding the bastard who did this. She had been overthrown with emotions before, but she had found a way to switch those off for the time being, so she could both concentrate on her work and live her life normally. Of course, she had bought more than she could eat. She had drained half a litre of delicious fibre-rich forest fruit juice and had eaten two whole focaccia breads, before deciding that half past eleven was way too early to eat like it was Christmas Eve.<p>

Somehow, this appetite meant she was feeling better. At the same time, it meant she wasn't feeling as bad as she should be feeling about what had happened. She felt guilty to be this hungry, like she should stop eating until the stranger was caught. It was a strange feeling to experience. But Hermione also knew that the people who were dead at the moment wouldn't want anyone to stop eating, to stop taking care of themselves. Hermione knew deep down they would want everybody to keep their heads up and carry on. She tried to remember that when she opened another carton of her juice - but saying and thinking that was so much easier than it sounded, and it was even harder to say that to herself when she arrived at the crime scene of Terry Boot, which was just as painful to see as Lavender's crime scene.

Hermione felt emotionally detached from the whole scene. She couldn't tell if she did that on purpose, or that she was becoming some sort of immune to the situation, but she didn't give those options too much thought, because this detachment helped her to concentrate better. She was content with how she was feeling now, and she decided to stop thinking on the how's and why's of her emotional state.

With this newfound numbness not achieved by taking in alcohol, Hermione carefully took in every single detail of the crime scene, taking fifty photographs in less then ten minutes - that got her slightly annoyed looks by the crime scene photographer, Colin Creevey - but she needed to be one hunderd percent sure the things she wanted to be photographed were actually couldn't see anything out of place at this moment. She saw Terry was most likely shot by someone who was smaller than the person or persons whom had shot the other three victims, but she couldn't say for sure until the results came back from the CSI lab - which was probably tomorrow. So she started to walk through alleys and streets around the crime scene, to see if there were any tracks from an escapee, like muddy footsteps, car tracks, anything - but she wasn't very good at spotting those signs yet.

She kept making bigger circles around the crime scene, thinking about making free time to learn about things like spotting escapee signs. If she successfully finished a course like that, or learned it from an expert... it could possibly solve the case or be essential to solving it. _Everyone_ left tracks, even serial killers without a personal goal.

Suddenly, something caught her eye on her right when she came out of an alley about hundred yards from Terry's crime scene. Two persons, judging by their business suits, on a break from their work, stood still on the curb, standing very close to each other. She couldn't see their faces - both were wearing their black coats with the collar up and they wore a hat too.

They were talking in a low voice, almost whispering to each other. It took Hermione some effort not to huff while she took some steps back into the alley - the two men looked like the villains in a cheap movie, where you know who did it in less than five minutes. Did they know they looked so typically suspicious or did they just like to dress that way? Hermione tried to overhear the two men, which was nearly impossible because they were fifty feet away, talked softly, and the wind blew the other way, so she only caught up some words that didn't mean anything significant, until one of the men started yelling at the other. It may be nothing, but Hermione's instinct told her this was something. Suspicious behaviour, close to a crime scene? It was definitely worth listening to their conversation.

"What d'you expect from me?" one of them men yelled suddenly. Out of anger, he stepped back from the other man, who came towards him and grabbed his arm. Hermione had done another step back into the alley, afraid they would spot her. They were about seven feet closer to her now. The same voice yelled again - "People are murdered, and you see that as a _opportunity_ for the enterprise?"

Enterprise! Hermione knew who one of the men could be, the man who was being yelled at. There was only one enterprise in the city: Malfoy Enterprises. Hermione thought the man who she hadn't heard talk yet may just be Lucius Malfoy himself. She had seen his face in the local newspaper occasionally and since the man had a very recognisable face she could easily identify him... the man certainly wore the same kind of clothes as Malfoy - his clothes were obviously tailor-made and very expensive. And, of course, the man had white blonde hair - nobody else had hair as white as his. Hermione wondered if she recognised his voice, but she couldn't recall ever meeting the man. A friend of Hermione's had interviewed Malfoy once, though, and he said that Lucius Malfoy was a straight up asshole and very full of himself. Next to that, Hermione knew the way the man spoke, according to the interviews she'd read. Maybe she could recognize him from that, if she would not see his face.

"I don't _expect_ anything from you..." the older man finally spoke coldly. The self-respect in his voice, his self-certainty; it must be Lucius Malfoy. Hermione's instinct had been right. Now the question was - who was the other person, the one she had heard speaking first? Which of Malfoy's employees dared to talk to him like that? Hermione didn't respect Lucius Malfoy, but she knew his employees most likely did and they would never talk to him like that.

"Oh! How lovely to hear that!" the unidentified man sneered, interrupting Lucius Malfoy, clearly upset. "No expectations for me!"

"Let me finish my sentences before you talk back to me," Malfoy said in a threatening tone. "I meant to say, not at the moment. But in a couple of months, I will expect things from you. You can do... _other_ sorts of business, my son," Lucius said slightly uncomfortable, bearing a creepy smile that made Hermione feel uncomfortable too. It took her a minute to register what he just had said. Other sorts of business? What did that mea- _wait_. What? 'My _son_?' What?

"Something more important than the petty crap you get me to do now?" the younger man asked. Hermione couldn't wait to see his face, just to be sure of it. Because as far as Hermione knew, Lucius Malfoy had one child, whom had be a student at the same high school as Hermione: Draco Malfoy.

They had never spoken to each other, but everybody knew him. He was someone almost every shallow girl fantasised about ending up with in their lives. Draco Malfoy was attractive, with his strong jaw line and his always good looking hair - but he would also own a fortune when his father died. This made a lot of girls swoon every time he walked by. Hermione didn't pay that much attention to guys in general at that age, and when she started to gain that interest around her twelfth year, Draco had not been the first on her mind. She had never paid him a lot of attention; she disliked his father even back than, and besides that, Draco came across as an arrogant git - but that could be prejudice from Hermione's side. He seemed to care; if the murders didn't interest him, he wouldn't have yelled at his father.

Now that she thought back to high school, she had never heard him talk before, but his voice and tone seemed very suitable by her little memories she had of him.

Hermione was onto something, this was important, and she knew it. Seeing opportunities for your business in murders on cops, an remark about "other sorts of business" with that tone and with such a creepy smile... She needed to find out more. Hermione was eager to investigate these two men further - this meant something, this had something to do with the murders, and she was going to find out what.

"Yes, Draco," Lucius replied to the speaker, confirming Hermione's thoughts. "Something _a lot_ more important. But have a little patience. There are more... opportunities for us to come and I just want to wait until the right time to get you briefed about one of those... chances."

More opportunities, more chances - they were synonyms for murder, Hermione thought, getting more certain of it with every second.

Suddenly, something caved in hard - a mental blow hit Hermione so hard she was shaking on her legs. _What was she doing?_ For fuck's sake, what the _hell_ was she _doing_? She wasn't right; the conversation could've meant everything, it could just mean the literal thing that was said, no hidden messages... With another dizzy hit, she remembered Lucius Malfoy did say that the murders could be an opportunity for the enterprise - or well, actually, she heard his son repeat him. What did that mean? The company didn't sell anything, they just did things with stocks. Hermione had never interested herself into the stock market, and she knew not a lot about it - but she knew that murders in a small city on specific people could not affect any stocks.

Hermione thought the whole conversation over, reminding herself to breath in and out slowly. What had she been making up just to hear some sort of evidence? What had truly been said? Was this really suspicious behaviour or did she just wanted to find something that could be important to the case?

The mental blow and the very concentrated thinking about it made her lose a part of the conversation the two man had. What shook Hermione awake from her thoughts was Lucius Malfoy passing by her alley at a quick pace, his luxury wingtips clicking on the pavement. He did not notice her, luckily. She looked carefully some more around the corner, wanting to see the face of Draco Malfoy. She already knew it was him, of course, but she'd like to see it with her own eyes too.

He was still standing on the pavement, lighting up a cigarette. He did not look very pleased. It was clear to Hermione that the part of the conversation she missed was not satisfactory for him, although his dad promised him a more important job. Hermione wondered if Draco knew what that could mean.

Keeping his head straight up, he put his lighter away and looked in the direction his father went, although he had gone around the corner already. He looked puzzled, and very cross. Hermione recognised his face immediately, of course; he was a very recognisable person. Now, she could also remember and understand better why the girls in high school found him so attractive. The man had a pretty face, his pale blond hair was cut in a easy model, he was tall, looked like he was strong and he had a certain amount of self-certainty over him that was not, like his dad, annoying.

Because he kept standing there, Hermione took the time to collect her thoughts. The mental blow she had received moments ago was not right. Her thoughts before that were right, the confirmation was the fact Draco had yelled at his father that it was crazy that murders were opportunities. In a few moments, she had decided she would do this undercover. She would get close to Malfoy, befriend him, maybe get herself a job at the Enterprise, and find out exactly what is going on there. She is going to solve this case, and it doesn't matter how.

Hermione worked up a quick plan. It was a crazy idea, maybe, but she had to make contact with him, and she had to do it now, before he got away. She could easily find his home address on the internet, but now was a perfect occasion for her to make contact with him.

Quickly but carefully, she unclasped her pistol, cuffs and taser from her belt and put them in her bag. She felt a little unprotected - Harry hadn't given them to her and the others just because he thought it was funny. She closed her bag, and waited for Draco Malfoy to walk, hopefully not towards her.

Every second she waited, she got more anxious. Was it a good idea - _literally_ running into him? But she wanted to befriend the guy, just to get a step closer to his father and his enterprise. Her hunch told her it wasn't right, what was going on there, if Draco knew about it or not. She guessed he didn't, but judging by the conversation, he will soon do know. He was doing 'petty crap' now; his own words. In college, Hermione had learned that lower ranged people in an organised crime circle had to do the actual killings, and it could easily be that Draco Malfoy was aiming on that - with that thought, she felt scared. What if she was about to befriend an actual murderer? She had been undercover with crooks and drug dealers, but never with a possible murderer. Her mind switched quick; if Draco was the murderer, he would not have been so confused by his father's insistence that they were an opportunity for the enterprise.  
>Still, the younger Malfoy was the perfect way to get information on his father, on their business, and on what was going on there.<p>

* * *

><p>Finally, he moved, in the direction Hermione wanted. Hermione didn't get why exactly he had not moved the entire time - for her it was almost impossible to stand as still as he did while smoking. But she wasn't a very patient person - maybe he was. Hermione waited for a few seconds in a start position. Then, when he went around the corner, she started running, like she was in a hurry.<p>

She realised she was running way too quick to casually run into him when she actually ran into him, knocking him over in the process. Before she knew it she was lying on top on him - him flat on his face, her on his back. This was certainly not how it was meant to go.

"Oh, fuck!" Hermione said, getting quickly off him. "I am so sorry!" Maybe knocking him over wasn't that bad, she hoped: now she didn't have to fake her apology. He moaned a little, standing up. Hermione didn't really know if she should help him standing up. She had the feeling he would push her away if she tried to touch him. She scolded herself. How could she have been so stupid? She'd had minutes to think about it!

"What the hell, woman?" Draco Malfoy said angrily when he stood on his feet again. He was at least seven inches taller than she was, towering above her. "Can't you just, you know, look where you are going? Like most people do?"

"I'm sorry," Hermione said. Every chance to a casual, funny and flirty conversation way gone. "I just was... in a hurry."

"Yeah, I figured," Draco deadpanned.

"I'm sorry," Hermione repeated.

"You mentioned," he said. "Weren't you in a hurry, or something?" He checked his clothing for dirt and he brushed himself off.

"Yes," she said. She wanting to run further, but somehow her legs kept her from doing that. Draco Malfoy was still not able to laugh at the situation. He held his arms crossed, looking at her with a slightly opened mouth and raised eyebrows, like she had just said something incredibly daft.

"Well, what are you waiting for, then?" he said.

"I just - are you - you - are you okay?" she said nervously, telling her legs to listen to him and move.

"Yes!" he yelled at her, making a sudden movement, which made Hermione jump a little back. "I'm standing up. I am not screaming in agony - stop _staring_ at me and fuck off!"

"But your face," Hermione said, panicking. She wouldn't normally let allow anyone to yell at her for no reason but a simple mistake... but now she felt she deserved to be yelled at. Not because of what she did, but because of what she should've done. This wasn't a good start for a friendship with him. "You are bleeding and -"

"Yes, _thank you_, miss," Draco interrupted sarcastically, wiping the blood from his chin. "Get out of my sight now - _please_." Hermione's feet suddenly responded, and she ran away, around the corner, where she stopped. With great caution, she looked back around the corner, to see what he was doing. He was standing with his back towards her, most likely wiping more blood from his face. Hermione was angry at herself; she had completely ruined it. Why had she ran harder than she should have? Why couldn't she say something witty or smart back to him? Why had she said she was sorry _three times_, when it was clear he was irritated already after the second time? Why wouldn't her legs move after he reminded her she needed to go somewhere?

Swearing and mentally cursing herself, Hermione walked away, back to Terry's crime scene. She also found it to be very annoying that she couldn't do anything with the information. First of all, Harry would discard it, saying it could mean anything, and secondly, she had no proof of the conversation at all.

* * *

><p>That night, Hermione still was annoyed. She had been bitchy towards her colleagues for the rest of her day, she had smoked all of her cigarettes in her package, she had bitched more. When she finally came home, she drained a glass of vodka, opened up a new pack of cigarettes, and showered for over an hour. She ate another focaccia bread, tearing pieces of it and eating it more violently than necessary.<p>

After she yelled at the neighbour's cat for being on her balcony, she let herself fall on her couch. She started searching for the remote, wanting to clear her mind by watching something brainless on television, and her mobile phone rang. Annoyed that she had to get up from the couch again to retrieve her phone out of her bag, she answered without looking who it was.

"Hey! Are you busy? D'you want to go out for drinks with me and Harry? Ginny is coming, and maybe Neville too," Ron's voice came. Hermione sighed. Did she wanted to go? Maybe it was good to be around her friends in a non-working environment for a change.

"Sure," she said. "What time?"

"Around ten, can you make that? See you there or do we have to pick you up?" Hermione glanced around her apartment. It was a complete mess. She was the organised, structured and clean kind of girl, but not for the past week. She normally didn't smoke indoors, but there was a full ashtray on her dining table, her coffee table and probably on her desk in the other room too. An empty bottle of vodka laid on her couch. Clothes and things out of her bag were all over the floor. Mugs with cold coffee everywhere. _It smells_, she realised - not recalling her apartment ever smelled this bad before. She did not want her friends to see this, she didn't want to let them know she was coping this badly with what had happened the past week.

"See you there," Hermione replied.

* * *

><p>It was a good decision to go out, Hermione thought contentedly. Being inside the warm and busy bar was nice; the soft talking, the laughter, the sound of glasses clinked together... she really liked this place, and it was really good to have a laugh and a drink and a normal conversation with her friends again, like nothing had changed in the past week.<p>

"Another, please," she ordered when a waiter came to their table, handing him her glass. "And a water, thank you." Her mouth was dry; she had told her company excitedly about her trip to Chicago. It was just a week ago - it felt like another lifetime. It was nice to talk about it, share her experiences of the city, people listening to her without a dreadful look on all their faces. She crossed her legs, touching the silky fabric of her dark green dress. It was nice to be out of her usual attire, too. It was not like she didn't like that; just a change in her world that didn't involved brutal murder was good for her at the moment, she figured.

"Neville didn't feel like coming?" Ginny asked, absent-mindedly making a small braid with the fiery red hair that fell over her shoulder. She had scooted closer to Harry when the evening advanced. Ron didn't notice, Harry did but did not object, Hermione noticed too, but pretended that she hadn't.

"No," Ron said, putting down his drink on the table "After I called Hermione, I called him, but he was..." Ron hesitated.

"He was visiting Hannah's parents," Harry finished his sentence. "We said we understood, and well..."

"I think I'll visit him tomorrow," Ginny said. "Poor boy." Nobody knew what to say to that, really. Hermione tried to catch Ron's eye, wanting to give him a look she thought was reassuring, but he had picked up his drink again, watched the amber liquid clotch up against the sides, swirling it around slowly and thoughtfully. Harry, Hermine and Ginny could normally contain their emotions, leave them at work when necessary - Ron had more problems with that. Counted with that, he had known Lavender Brown better than they all had, having dated her a few months at high school.

"How's your new job, Ginny?" Hermione asked quickly before an awkward silence could fall between the four friends.

"Another subject, please," she said, sighing and unbraiding the small braid again, leaving the three strands of hair curly. "It is horrible, I am still going to job interviews at other companies..."

Hermione leaned back a little to look around the bar, looking at Ginny and Harry while listening to her with a small smirk. She had known since the evening started that they were together, or had at least talked about their feelings for one another. It was obvious, really - the signs of attraction towards each other had started a few days before Hermione had left for Chicago, and now they were purposely trying to act like they were nothing more than friends. They didn't even have to come into the bar together for Hermione to see the signs. They spoke to each other, but they didn't speak like friends did - instead their eyes were fixated on each others' mouth, pupils dilated. Ginny crossed and uncrossed her legs. They both touched their face and hair often.

Hermione had thought Harry knew, by now, after working together for several years, that she couldn't be fooled. He had seen her questioning suspects, seen her seeing right through even the smallest lie. Hermione wasn't an expert with facial expressions, but that wasn't needed because, well, most of the people questions weren't experts at lying.

Ginny and Harry had, apparently, decided not to tell Ron nor Hermione about them being together - if they had discussed it at all - and who was Hermione to point the two of them out like that? She could think of many reasons why they wouldn't tell, and all of the reasons she had in mind were pretty fair - the first reason being that Ginny was the little sister of Harry's best mate; Ron. Secondly, and the most obvious one, was that new love seemed quite inappropriate, with everything going on. Hermione wouldn't think it was inappropriate - you simply can't decide when you are going to fall in love with someone, or with whom.

"Thank you for the snow globe, by the way," Ginny said, shaking Hermione awake from her thoughts. "Too bad your birthday dinner was cancelled..." Hermione thought so too. It was on the day of the first murder, and not only had she put effort in preparing dishes the day before the dinner was supposed to be held, but she would've loved to be with all the people closest to her. She had been away on her actual birthday, but it was nevertheless her twenty-fifth birthday party, and she reckoned it was... special. It seemed rather childish and silly to her now, putting meaning to a number - but it didn't felt it was then.

"When we solved the case maybe we can celebrate - " she started to reply, when she heard a distinctive text alert tune. She froze right on the spot. _No_.

"After the case, after the case," Ron mumbled, and he downed his whiskey. He hadn't noticed Hermione didn't finish her sentence. "Is that what they are trying to achieve? That we don't go on with our lives and put everything good on hold until the case is solved? Hermione, by the time this case is solved you will probably be closer to your thirtieth birthday than to your twenty-fifth." Hermione didn't hear Ron's words, nor did she saw the glance between Harry and Ginny, nor did she hear Harry's confirmatory reply or the small whine from Ginny about that the conversation was brought back to the topic work again and that she wanted to talk about something entirely else.

With shaking hands, she retrieved her cell phone out of her purse and she looked at the message on the screen. _New Messages: 1. From: PD Alert._ She opened it, reluctantly. The text alert tune had alreadytold her from whom she had received the text. Since it was after six o'clock, it could only mean one thing. A death.

"Harry," she said, her voice raspy. _No, no, no._ "Harry, Ron, look at your phones."

"What is it?" Ginny asked, but Hermione ignored her. Harry seemed oblivious to Hermione's current state of emotion - most likely thanks to a few glasses of alcohol.

"Don't have it with me," he said. Hermione felt like screaming to him that she clearly didn't mean his regular phone but his work phone, and that they were idiots for drinking all four - not that anyone had gotten here by car, they all lived at walking distance. Instead, Hermione gave Ron her own phone, pressing it hard into his hand.

"Oi!" he said, while Hermione put on her coat with massive speed.

"Just bloody _read_ it, Ronald," she said, annoyed. She retrieved her wallet, pushed some bills in Ron's hand and left. It was busy at the bar, but all Hermione could hear was the blood rushing through her own body, feel her elevated pulse beating in her wrists and neck, and her own voice in her head, reading the text message aloud repeatedly.

"Hermione!" She faintly heard one of her friends yell. Her mind registered that they probably wanted her to wait for them, but that would cost her time. Valuable time, in which the suspect would be able to get further away from the crime scene.

_Draco Malfoy,_ her brain said and contradicted immediately while she pushed the door of the cafe open. No, it was _Lucius_ who was her suspect.

_Draco Malfoy,_ her brain said again. Hermione found herself not moving, in the door post, and she briefly wondered why, before all the parts of her mind started working together as they are supposed too.

A pale blond man dressed in a well fitting black suit stood right in front of her, wanting to enter the bar Hermione just left.

They eyed each other for a second. Hermione gave him a small smile that disappeared almost instantly from her face, and she passed him, leaving Draco with an questioning frown on his handsome face, making her way to the murder scene.

* * *

><p><em>I've got a notion that says it doesn't feel right  Got the answer in your story today / You gave me a sign that didn't feel right / So don't knock it / Don't knock it / You've been here before._

* * *

><p><strong>Tumblr<strong>; SameOldSameOld-DramioneFanfic  
><strong>Youtube<strong>; SameOldSameOldHPFF


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